


Red

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Colors [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya centric, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7785190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya's world is defined in red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be short and succinct. I'm trying to experiment with my writing style because sometimes I like when pieces are blunt, so I thought I would try it.

Red is the color of Arya’s blood when the Waif pulls the knife out of her stomach. She barrel rolls and dives into the blue, blue water, remembering a time when she had begged her father to let her see the sea, hanging onto stories her mother told her of swimming at Riverrun. 

Her blood stains the water, tainting the blue, and strangely enough all she can think of is her brother Robb. The blue and red makes the Tully combination she had so desperately wanted when she was younger, something Robb, Sansa, Bran, and baby Rickon had. Their hair and their eyes would have matched her blood and the sea she dove into, and as she sinks down she thinks that maybe this is a gift from the gods- a reminder of her family before she dies.

She distantly wonders if this is how Robb felt when he died. Did he look down at the red pooling around him and think of home? Did he see any blue before he took his last breath? Or was he surrounded by grey and thought of her, Jon, and their father?

She comes up for air, gasping and sputtering. She takes to the streets, covering the red that pours out of her stomach as she stains the cobblestone of Braavos and collapses in the acting troupes tent, remembering a time when red meant something other than death.

***

Red is the color of Robb’s hair when he greets her in the next life. “Am I dead?” she asks her brother, her voice strong and unafraid of what the next life holds.

“You’re not quite dead yet,” he says, his smile melancholy with red whiskers coming off his face. He was young when he died, but Arya will be younger if she dies from her stab wounds.

“Where is mother?” she questions. Perhaps her mother had escaped the Red Wedding, after all, she had only seen Robb’s body.

Robb looks pensive before he answers. “She’s not quite dead either. You’ll have to kill her if you see her.” His words are final, and thanks to training to be a faceless man, she does not question it. After all, if Robb is telling her she has to kill her mother, it must be for a good reason. 

“Robb, I’m going to kill them. Everyone who hurt our family, I’ll kill them. Walder Frey is going to die by my hand. I promise you.”

The smile Robb gives her seems to be weary more than anything else, and then he kisses her forehead and she is slipping away from him as death releases its hold on her. She is losing him once again, and all she can think of is how she doesn’t know a word to correctly describe the red of his hair.

When she comes back to the living, red is the color that seeps from the Waif’s eyes after Arya cuts her down.

***

The face Arya wears has red freckles across its nose and hair that looks like a sunset in Braavos. When someone asks her for her name, she tells them she is Myranda, and her smile is sweet as red roses. The men watch her with hungry eyes and Lord Frey stares at her just the same as Jaime Lannister does.

Ser Jaime’s cloak is red and gold, and the look he gives her is full of conflict and interest. _So he still loves Cersei,_ she muses. _He is a lion, but the poor man doesn’t know that it is the lionesses who do the hunting._

She thinks about how the most famed member of the kingsguard cut down Jory, and how she had to run from a home that wasn’t home. _Maybe he will be added to the list,_ she thinks. After all, all men must die, but Jaime Lannister looks at Lord Frey like he is scum of the earth.

She does not know if he agrees with the what happened to her brother and mother at the Red Wedding; the knight sits in the hall with an easy smile but his eyes pierce daggers and his tongue throws sharp words at any Frey he talks to. In her ears there is a ringing, something she heard passed through the crowds after her family was slaughtered in the very hall she stands in; there is a slightly manic voice screaming in her head that the Lannister’s send their regards and she knows she wants to put Jaime’s name on her list, but then she overhears him mention Brienne of Tarth with affection she’s only heard men use for lovers and knows she cannot add him.

When Jaime speaks to Walder Frey in a threatening tone, his voice is filled with a red that Arya consumes, letting it bathe over her as she grows anxious to keep her promise to Robb.

Red is the color of vengeance as she destroys House Frey without remorse.

***

There are too many shades of red for Arya to decipher when she sees her mother again. There is a crimson leaking from Catelyn’s eyes, vermillion caked under her nails, and a lack of dusty red on her mother’s cheeks.

Most of all, there is a red that sweeps over her calling for bloodlust as she grabs Thoros of Myr and slams him against a tree, rage flowing through her veins.

“How could you do this?” she screams, her voice catching at the end. “How could you turn my mother into a monster when she did not ask for it? How could you steal her peace away from her? All her family is on the other side and you stole it from her!”

She understands what Robb said now, about having to kill their mother. There are men hanging from the surrounding trees, their Lannister gold useless to them now, and all she can think of is how her mother belongs with her seven gods surrounded by a sea of red Tully hair. 

Thoros smiles with stained teeth, telling her that it wasn’t his choice but the Lord of Light’s, and Arya only thinks of her very first lesson with Jon as she sticks her mother with the pointy end, later going to the nearest river so she can vomit and let the red blood of Catelyn Stark be washed from her hands.

***

The fire that Jon Snow has in his room at Castle Black is a glowing red, and Arya has never felt more comfortable. They call Jon the Prince that was Promised now and say he is Azor Ahai reborn, but she can’t find it in herself to care. He is still Jon to her, and the familiarity of it all is like back when she was a child and wished for red hair like her siblings.

He has a new sigil now- a red dragon surrounded by black- because he is Targaryen and the red stain on Ned Stark is erased. Arya wears her gray direwolf with pride, and when she sees Jon look uncomfortably at the dragon on his banners, she reminds him of his grey eyes so like hers and her father’s so he knows that he is still a Stark in everything but name.

There is the threat of the White Walkers that has every person who can fight rallying their arms so they can go beyond the Wall and destroy the monsters. In the back of her mind, she’s reminded of her mother’s undead body- another monster- and thinks that if she falls in battle and wakes up to her mother in the next life, it would be nice to be wrapped in her arms and to feel the red hair she doesn’t know how to name.

When her eyes meet Jon’s, she decides that as much as she loves her mother, she loves being by his side more. His hair is tied back in a bun and, ever since she reunited with him months ago, she has wanted to run her hand through it and muss it up; she is desperate to make him laugh and to lighten the burden on his shoulders, but she knows that they are both forged from the same fabric and in their hearts there is only a red that asks for justice.

She thinks of the grim smile Robb wore when she saw him in the afterlife, and how it is reflected on Jon’s face. All she can think to do, to make him smile even though they are fighting for their lives, is to press her lips to his. When he kisses her back, she feels herself enveloped in red, but it is no longer singing her and calling for blood. This time, the red is cradling her away from the White Walkers and the rest of the world until nothing exists but her and Jon.

***

Red is the flame that appears on Jon’s sword after Melisandre stabs it into Arya’s chest, calling her Nissa Nissa and telling her that it is all for the greater good. Her blood will help Azor Ahai, the Prince who was Promised, her lover, Jon Targaryen.

When the blade is removed and Arya puts her hand to her chest, she looks down and sees the droplets of red on white snow, and thinks it is so fitting that she- someone so full of red anger, red vengeance, and red hatred- die surrounded by snow.

After all, it was only Jon Snow who could temper her red to mean only love.

***

When Arya Stark wakes to red, it is not because of rage. This time, it is the tickle of hair on her arm, and when she looks to her side, she sees her mother sitting next to her. Her throat is dry and she can’t find the words to say to Catelyn Stark.

She settles on the easiest ones. “I’m sorry,” she says, scratchy and quiet. Robb stands to her other side, tears in his eyes as he holds her hand. Even Rickon is there, and when she sees him she lets out a gasp. Her father stands, grey and tall, across from where she rests in the bed.

“Arya, dear, you have nothing to be sorry for,” her mother tells her. “I wasn’t myself. It isn’t what I wanted. My brave, beautiful, little girl, you saved me.”

Arya mutely nods her head, yet she can’t find the words to explain herself properly. _I’m sorry I’m so angry. I’m sorry I only think of vengeance. I’m sorry I don’t have room in my heart anymore to love anyone other than Jon._

It is Jon that makes her think, and she suddenly sits up straight, staring directly at her father. “Jon,” she rasps out, “is he safe? Is he alive? Did he win the battle?”

Her father gives her a solemn smile, and Arya can feel her body tense. “He survived the battle and they won, thanks to the help of Daenerys Targaryen and Bran,” he says, full of pride when he mentions his son. “But when he returned from battle, he secluded himself with the maester’s as they work to heal you.”

“But I’m dead, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” Arya says, feeling her heart grow heavy with the thought of leaving Jon to feel the dreadful red alone.

Robb gives her a toothy grin then, squeezing her hand before saying, “You’re not dead yet, just comatose, like Bran after his fall. In fact, you’re waking up now-” and as if the words were magic, she feels herself get dragged away from her family, just as she was dragged away from Robb so many months ago- “after all, us Stark’s are hard to kill.”

“I’ll be back eventually,” Arya whispers, “All men must die.”

Her mother only leans over to kiss her cheek, letting her red hair brush across Arya’s arms as she is once again released from death.

***

Arya opens her eyes in the land of the living to see grey eyes tinged with red, a sure sign that Jon had cried and had not slept well. On her chest is a bandage, stained slightly, but all she can seem to focus on is how Jon’s eyes light up when he sees her. They seem to glow silver, and they are suddenly full of life.

When he kisses her, she is consumed by red- and it is the sorrow of leaving her family, the guilt for missing them when she would have left her love alone in the world, and her undying love for Jon combined into one burst of color. 

After Jon pulls away, his lips are red and bruised while his cheeks hold a rose blush. She feels like a child again, when red meant more than death and destruction, when it was only for love and family. 

_Maybe,_ Arya decides, _there is nothing wrong with that._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always open to prompts so if you want a game of thrones character with a color just put it in the comments or something idk (like this would be arya stark + red) because I like writing and need to take breaks from college


End file.
